State to review local milfoil removal program

The Loon Lake Park District Association is receiving help from the Adirondack Park Association and the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program to develop a system for collecting data to help determine if their milfoil eradication program is doing any good. The LLPDA is paying over $90,000 per year to help get rid of milfoil, which causes problems for bathers and boaters.

Photo by Christopher South

CHESTERTOWN | Two agencies in the state have agreed to work with the Loon Lake Park District Association to determine if its attempts at controlling Eurasian milfoil are meeting expectations.

Erin Vennie-Volrath, an aquatic project coordinator with the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program (APIPP), said the Loon Lake Park District Association reached out to the APIPP and the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) to help it assess whether or not their efforts to manage milfoil, which is now costing nearly $100,000 per year.

“Loon Lake has been dealing with (milfoil) for about 18 years and has spent a lot of money. They have questioned whether an impact is being made, and there is not a good way to assess that,” Vennie-Volrath said.

LLPDA President John Nick said the association has had four contractors and numerous volunteers doing milfoil remediation.

He said that, as president, although he has been generally pleased with the contractors he did not want to have his opinion and that of the contractors to be the evaluation of the effectiveness of program. Nick got in touch with APIPP and APA to see if they could help.

“I thought a good approach would be to come up with an evaluation process and evaluate the milfoil situation year to year,” Nick said.

Vennie-Volrath, when contacted by phone, said she is working with Leigh Walrath of the APA to help develop a pilot program on Loon Lake because there was nothing in place they could use.

They have since developed a protocol, which could end up being used on other lakes. Eurasian milfoil is in about 60 lakes in the Adirondacks, and a smaller percentage of lakes are managing it.

“It’s a kind of experiment — a way for Loon Lake to go around look and assess the density on a yearly basis and, over time, see if the density is going down,” Vennie-Volrath said.

The APIPP/APA protocol will essentially put a quantitative value on Loon Lake’s milfoil program. Loon Lake has a long history of managing milfoil, and the protocol will give the LLPDA a tool to decide what to do, and perhaps be of value if the LLPDA ever goes to the Town of Chester to ask for money, Vennie-Volrath said.

Horicon and Schroon Lake have budget line items for mitigating invasive plants.

Nick said he is not sure whether Loon Lake is in the management phase, but believes they are getting close. He said the LLPDA has been around for 77 years, and it has been attempting to combat milfoil for 15 to 18 years.

Under the new protocol, volunteers will be trained to assess the amount of milfoil in the lake, and the data will be examined in the fall. The protocol will be changed as needed, with the hope of applying it to other lakes.

Nick said he was happy to see the APIPP and APA investing their efforts in Loon Lake’s invasive plant problem. He said even Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced recently he is seeing a specific problem with invasive species and assigning more emphasis at the state level in combating the problem.